Winston's War_ Churchill, 1940-1945 - Max Hastings [115]
When Britain’s Tokyo ambassador, Sir Robert Craigie, later submitted a valedictory dispatch, he was sharply censured by the prime minister for describing Japan’s assault in the east as “a disaster for Britain.” On the contrary, said Churchill, it was “a blessing … Greater good fortune has never happened to the British Empire.” That night of December 7, 1941, Churchill wrote in a draft of his memoirs: “Saturated and satiated with emotion414 and sensation, I went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful. One hopes that eternal sleep will be like that.”
EIGHT
A Glimpse of Arcadia
DE GAULLE SAID after Pearl Harbor: “Well then, this war is over415. Of course, there are more operations, battles and struggles ahead; but … the outcome is no longer in doubt. In this industrial war, nothing can resist the power of American industry. From now on, the British will do nothing without Roosevelt’s agreement.” The U.S. president told Churchill: “Today all of us are in the same boat with you and the people of the Empire, and it is a ship which will not and cannot be sunk.” Unlike Churchillian assertions earlier in the war, born of blind faith, Roosevelt’s words were rooted in realities of power.
Harold Nicolson wrote on December 11: “We simply can’t be beaten416 with America in. But how strange it is that this great event should be recorded and welcomed here without any jubilation. We should have gone mad with joy if it had happened a year ago … Not an American flag flying in the whole of London. How odd we are!” Part of the explanation was given by London charity worker Vere Hodgson. Like many of her compatriots, she felt that Pearl Harbor served the Americans right: “Though I do not wish anyone to be bombed417, a little wholesome shaking-up is good for people who contemplate the sufferings of others with equanimity … Poor dear people in those islands of bliss, sunshine and fruit drinks. They must have had an unpleasant Sunday afternoon … I should think Colonel Lindbergh has retired to a room with dark blinds—not to be heard of for many a long day.”
A Home Intelligence report said: “While the public are prepared to make418 any sacrifices necessary to help Russia … they have no such disposition towards America … America is ‘too damned wealthy’… Americans are too mercenary-minded, and … the hardship and suffering of war ‘will do them a lot of good.’” Few British people felt minded to thank the Americans for belatedly entering the war not from choice or principle, but because they were obliged to. Some were fearful that U.S. belligerence would check the flow of supplies to Britain and Russia. It was left to the prime minister to open his arms to a transatlantic embrace, which many of his compatriots were foolish enough to grudge.
In the days following Pearl Harbor, from everywhere save Malaya the war news reaching Churchill briefly brightened. The Royal Navy was faring better in its struggle with Hitler’s U-boats. Auchinleck continued to signal optimistically about the progress of Crusader in the desert. “Consider tide turned,” he reported from Cairo on December 9, and two days later: “We are pressing pursuit vigorously.” The Russians were still holding Moscow, Leningrad and the Baku oil fields. Churchill told the House of Commons on December 8: “We have at least four-fifths of the population of the globe upon our side. We are responsible for their safety and for their future. In the past we have had a light which flickered, in the present we have a light which flames, and in the future there will be a light which shines over all the land and sea.”
On December 10 came ghastly tidings, of the destruction of Prince of Wales and Repulse by Japanese air attack off Malaya.